Turkey detains six Islamic State, al-Qaeda suspects
Turkey has stepped up its security operations against terrorist groups, ahead of the decisive May 14 elections.
Turkish police have detained six foreign nationals over their suspected links to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in an anti-terror operation in Istanbul, local news outlets reported Wednesday.
The suspects are believed to have ties with conflict zones in Syria and Iraq. They were rounded up during simultaneous raids at 10 different hideouts across seven Istanbul neighborhoods. Digital material and documents found in the hideouts were confiscated.
Turkey has stepped up security operations against extremist groups inside the country, with police conducting several raids over the past two weeks ahead of the watershed parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14. Some 42 suspects with alleged ties to IS and al-Qaeda were detained in several major provinces, including the capital Ankara. Two days prior to the raids in Istanbul, Ankara police detained 11 Iraqi and Syrian nationals over their suspected ties to IS.
Earlier this year, several Western diplomatic missions in Istanbul issued security alerts warning their nationals against a potential attack on foreigners. Some of the missions and foreign institutions in Istanbul and Ankara temporarily closed their offices to pre-empt a possible terrorist attack. The move drew the ire of Ankara, with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu saying Western countries were attempting “to paint Turkey as an unstable country” with these alerts.
